[MCN] Action Needed to Stop Logging Damage in Recovering Burned Area Near the Great Bear Wilderness!

[Matthew Koehler]

*From: *"Swan View Coalition" <keith at swanview.org>
*Subject: **Your Letter Needed to Stop Logging Damage in Recovering Burned
Area!*
*Date: *February 3, 2016 4:00:19 PM MST

Hundreds of scientists are in agreement that burned trees are essential to
ecosystem resiliency and that logging does more harm than good to areas
burned by forest fires.
<http://www.swanview.org/?ACT=27&spoor=d1d190b875bb563f81f81725aa2e7e44&link_id=2108>

But the Flathead National Forest wants to log in them anyway and we need
your help to see that they don't!

Please take 5 minutes to copy and paste from the sample letter below (or
create your own) and send as an email to:
comments-northern-flathead-spotted-bear at fs.fed.us
Include "Trail Creek Fire Salvage Project in the subject line!

*OR *

Download here as a pdf
<http://www.swanview.org/?ACT=27&spoor=d1d190b875bb563f81f81725aa2e7e44&link_id=2109>,
print, sign, and post the sample letter to Matt Shaffer, 650 Wolfpack Way,
Kalispell, MT  59901.

The Trail Creek Fire Salvage Project can be viewed and downloaded here
<http://www.swanview.org/?ACT=27&spoor=d1d190b875bb563f81f81725aa2e7e44&link_id=2110>
.

*Here's the sample letter:*

Matt Shaffer - Project Leader
Flathead National Forest
650 Wolfpack Way
Kalispell, MT  59901

Re:      Comments on proposed Trail Creek Fire Salvage Project

Dear Mr. Shaffer;

>From the perspective of fish, wildlife, soils, and water quality, your
proposal to remove some 1,400 log truck loads of trees from the remote
Trail Creek Fire area near the Great Bear Wilderness should be called
“Post-Fire Theft” rather than “Fire Salvage.” Trees in burned areas are
absolutely essential to wildlife and ecosystem resilience. They are not in
need of “salvage.” As 264 scientists told Congress in a letter last
September
<http://www.swanview.org/?ACT=27&spoor=d1d190b875bb563f81f81725aa2e7e44&link_id=2111>
:

". . . numerous scientific studies tell us that even in the patches where
forest fires burn most intensely, the resulting wildlife habitats are among
the most ecologically diverse on western forestlands and are essential to
support the full richness of forest biodiversity . . . This post-fire
renewal, known as 'snag forest' is quite simply some of the best wildlife
habitat in forests, and is an essential state of natural processes . . .
post-fire logging does far more harm than good to public forests."

(DellaSala et al., September 2015, Open Letter to U.S. Senators and
President Obama from Scientists Concerned about Post-Fire Logging and
Clearcutting on National Forests)

You should focus instead on problems being caused by your logging roads and
the noxious weeds along them. You’ve already been awarded Burned Area
Emergency Restoration (BAER) money to spray 88 acres of weeds along
existing roads, so you don’t need to sell logs to pay for it. The last
thing you should do is put logging and road building machinery in there,
spreading those existing weeds across the landscape!

Because you did the right thing in the late 1990s and decommissioned 20
miles of roads in the area to protect grizzly bear security and fisheries
by removing their culverts, you only have a few culverts causing problems
for fish and water quality on the remaining roads. But you now propose to
rebuild 7 miles of those previously decommissioned and re-vegetated roads
so you can log in Grizzly Bear Security Core and then have to deconstruct
these roads again to re-secure bear and fish habitat! This is an
unacceptable disruption of Security Core, a senseless waste of taxpayer
dollars, and would cause repetitive reconstruction/deconstruction releases
of sediment from roads that were previously “waterproofed” and simply need
to be left alone.

That leaves the planting of elk forage and trees as the only “restoration”
work you say you need money for. Yet your BAER reports, your proposal and
news articles say that vegetation began sprouting immediately after the
fire. All you really need to do is keep logging and road rebuilding
machinery off this area so that natural regeneration doesn’t get trampled
and can continue to green up as it has following fires for millennia!

You have already sold three roadside fire-related timber sales in the area
since the 2015 fires and you reworked the pre-fire Cedar Chipmunk Timber
Sale so it is now logging fire-killed trees - all with no public
involvement. Now you want to rule out formal public Objections to your
Trail Creek Fire Salvage Project by seeking an “Emergency Situation
Determination.” Don’t do it! Moreover, you already have numerous “green”
timber sales units authorized near the Trail Creek Fire area.

Don’t waste your time and taxpayer money writing an Environmental
Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement that tries to rationalize the
need to violate Forest Plan Grizzly Bear Security Core standards for
several years with the Trail Creek post-fire logging proposal. Instead,
remove or clean the several culverts you are having trouble with, leave the
culvert-less decommissioned roads alone, and let the area continue
recovering as nature intended.

Sincerely,

Name:

Address:


THANK YOU for taking a few minutes to speak up for fish, wildlife and
natural ecosystems!
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